Cappadocia – up in the sky, a balloon ride

Wakey wakey.  Woke up at 4:30am.

What for you ask?

No, it wasn’t because there was some special feast.

It was for an early morning balloon ride

But first you have to put the hot air in.  No it doesn’t mean that you need to find one of your friends that has that in abundance.  Just turn on your handy flame thrower.

Then it will kind of self inflate

And this is what you see from low down

And from the middle

And this is from on high

Its a rather weird experience as you kind of float along and along.  Totally silence except when the burner is turned on

Except of course other tourists when you drift too close to another balloon

There are actually 200 flights all at once at 5:30am every day.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy on the day that we went up, but still a real experience!

You get a top down view of life

Like little ants scurrying around.  Those are actually the chase cars that come to pick you up once you land

And just enjoy the ride

This is one way to see the famous fairy chimneys close up

But one hour later it was all done

So we had to come in to land

And our trusty balloon deflated

It needed some help from the passengers though

Happy faces

In an added bonus, the balloon pilot decided to kidnap the nosiest member of our group.  We were all so dismayed that we didn’t do anything but point and laugh.

Bye for now.